Got impatient and pulled Bonkers. +Atk/-Spd which is unfortunate, but honestly, if I ignore the Spd Powercreep arms race, 40 Spd before buffs/auras is still really good and it helps her offense. The trouble is in justifying her on a team with Usagero (although I can stuff her on a team with Nowitch and Elincia for leap frogger shenanigans; and if Flier Formation ever becomes a SSeal, then I could fully replace my Mounted Emblem arena team).

A fifth Lyn was certainly not needed (though arguably this one's more justified in existing compared to the two seasonal ones), and she's not even using Mani Katti so we'll probably get a sixth one eventually (honestly giving her Mani Katti would've made way more sense in terms of how the Legendaries are loosely themed, after the events of FE7 and she probably wasn't lugging the Sol Katti around and I doubt she went graverobbing for Mulagir, but I guess this was one of their few chances to make a Legendary Bow because otherwise we'd have a huge pileup on swords for whenever the other Lords become Legends). Anyway she seems like an above-average unit but actually nothing gamebreaking, certainly not near the level of Brave Lyn. Putting aside the lack of cavalry range her base kit is heavily reliant on player input. Plus the green color is more of a detriment than anything, Colorless's neutral damage to everyone was what made them so annoying to check; DC swords are everywhere and she can't block counters like Brave Lyn can without running Firesweep. Also her attack is low-ish (at least in comparison to the ridiculous units we've been getting), but you can see that as them being faithful to the source material. At least she's the right color to take care the most threatening tome color.

Regardless I'll probably dump my orbs on the Legendary banner. I wouldn't mind getting any of the units I'm missing and the ones I already have I could use more of for merging/skills. No scenario for this banner where I'll pull 3 shitty Gaiuses in a row and feel like snapping my phone in half. Ephraim's my most wanted unit here, along with the new Lyn and a bunch of Gennys so I can give everyone wrathful staff.

Also it's nice that Grand Conquest is going to be another potential source of free units, but they need to figure something out about how they'll rerun units from the past because the list isn't getting any smaller.

The gag about Wind Lyn isn't the fact that she's a worse Bow Lyn, but that A) we'll finally have a Lyn for every color, B) she sounds like she'll be unaffected by Bowbreaker which will be a nasty shock to some people (while Setsuna's value plummets), and C) she offers Bow Lyn an avenue to an even more busted Mulagir (again, why a Mani Katti Lyn would've been my preference to help replace OG Lyn; on the flip side, I'm actually loling at her getting a second Mulagir before a second Sol Katti since the devs are finally giving her a real goddamn Legendary Prf instead of that bargain bin faux Legendary trash that is Sol Katti).

Sadly, if the BK is anything to go by, we may end up seeing the other event exclusive units needing to be purchased rather than being offered in-game. Which is going to be a problem since the only repeat we've had thus far was Masked Marth.

Hinoka functions perfectly well as an armor check which imo is a much more useful niche than the wo dao DPS that Usagero offers.

That's why I'm not too broken up about Bonkers' Spd deficit. Extra damage is worth a whole lot more when your primary gimmick is to warp around and airstrike Armors, and she's not eating a superbane in Def to get there (although DC fuck sticks will still ruin her day as her Def is still terrible).

The issue I have with her and Usagero is that Bonkers wants to be on an all Air team for sudo-3 Move shenanigans, and they'd make for a great battle couple except for the fact that both are rocking Colorless damage and lack Def or durability in general which aside from making Dragon hunting not-a-viable option either, lends to a lack of WTA coverage. Also, Usagero helps increase the number of [Great] Badges I get from the Training Tower which makes upgrading SSs slightly easier and pairs well with Nowitch's/Carrotmilla's ability to increase Crystals/Shards.

On the plus side, Bonkers will be greatly appreciated on my Flier Emblem Brigade team either way due to RDs/GCNs favoring ranged Player Phase units.

Edit: On today's episode of "It came from the Training Tower!" is an Infantry Ephraim with a native 40 Spd (alongside an Exalt Chrom, a Ryoma and 2 Leos). Not even a full health Celica or a fully supported +Spd Mae could double him.

I've run calcs and if you give hinoka flier buffs she'll survive the vast majority of counter attacks from +5 merge armor units just fine, and then kill them on the second attack. Her movement utility imo is overrated as guidance and the likes are better served as seals when skills like Desperation exist that vastly improve her primary niche of armor slaying over questionable levels of improvement over the most flexible mobility heroes in the game.

Coincidentally, a +10 Bow Hinoka is probably the best armor effective weapon user in the game, beating even the likes of Micaiah who can only really dent red armors at high merges.

Logged

"All those moments will be lost in time... like tears.. in rain" -Roy Batty

I've run calcs and if you give hinoka flier buffs she'll survive the vast majority of counter attacks from +5 merge armor units just fine, and then kill them on the second attack. Her movement utility imo is overrated as guidance and the likes are better served as seals when skills like Desperation exist that vastly improve her primary niche of armor slaying over questionable levels of improvement over the most flexible mobility heroes in the game.

Coincidentally, a +10 Bow Hinoka is probably the best armor effective weapon user in the game, beating even the likes of Micaiah who can only really dent red armors at high merges.

I think you're misinterpreting what I'm saying. I have no qualms with using Bonkers at all and will use her starting in May when the new monthly quests pop up. My qualm is the fact that I also just got a Skygaro with a +1 merge and the two don't fit on the same team terribly well. The main issue is generating enough SP to obtain all the skills they need to function (in addition to raising Bonkers and other fliers still on the backburner like Airzura, Springmilla, Elincia, or a Subaki so that my Flier Emblem team can finally have some variety (up until recently its been Cordelia, Nowitch, Michalis and a wildcard, usually 4 star Palla but sometimes Camilla and recently Gerome)).

Also, which Red Armors are you looking at? Because in my experience, Zephiel and Winter Tharja are the only ones to have above 20 Res (and that's if Zephiel's rocking his forged Eggssex and not LaD).

Anyways, I'm glad that the daily Tapper! quests have started repeating. Now I don't have to worry about having to S ranking all of Hard Mode or anything outrageous (yet...).

And on a different note, I'm probably going to promote my 4 star +Atk/-HP Seliph to 5 stars since I can't pull a 5 star version of him anymore and I want to give him some T_T love.

Edit: Nothing like falling less than 50 ranks short of 2k feathers to remind me that even as a T_T+, there's still some things that need to be fixed (like the complete and total removal of the Ranking rewards from T_T; just give everyone 2k feathers and be done with it).

Legendary Edit: Latest Legendary Banner is up and I have 120+ Orbs to burn. Managed to snag a +Def/-HP Halloween Jakob, got pitybroken by a +Spd/-HP Micaiah and then immediately scored a +Atk/-Def Wind Lyn (I continue to have every goddamn Lyn but the original), and I still have enough Orbs for one more pull. Still looking for Fire Ephraim, but like half of my pulls are all Red Orbs (i.e. the one color I have no use for). Female Grima is less important since I cleared Narcian's Armor quest with what I have (although it did cost me 200 Mtn Dew, so hopefully it'll be awhile before I pull an Alm or a 5 star Roy). I guess the game is apologizing for dicking me over with the +_+ (I think I'm just going to start calling it this unless they really do away with that Ranking bullshit; I was just under 117k goddammit and I still didn't make it :argh:).

Being that I'm insane and autobattle endlessly on the weekends while doing whatever I appreciate the 10k feathers coming my way. I ended up above Rank 100 with a score close to 300k. Funny thing is that even with all that auto-ing my Swordhardt isn't even halfway to 5k HM yet. I did cap Seliph, Finn, and Greenolwen on top of re-capping a bunch of staffbots and Reinhardt Classic. Despite my Seliph being a nice +ATK -SPD one, he'll remain at 4 stars for me for a while, especially given how stingy the game is with Divine Dew. Can't spare him the version of Tyrfing that actually does anything.

Anyway went all-in on the Legendary banner and I averaged out pretty poorly. Got 5 5*s out of 72 character pulls which is a below-average result even without accounting for pity rates. The content of said 5*s was similarly underwhelming to a degree. So far I've gotten:

The traits on Micaiah, Celica, and Henry are all okay and it's nice to finally have a ranged armor to use, but the double -ATK Ephraim was really disheartening. Still I guess it's nice I got at least one of the units I really wanted. Don't think I'm particularly interested in giving Sturdy Stance to anyone so I'll probably merge them together. Probably will go with the +SPD one since even though more HP fits his role better, his speed is actually kinda salvageable if you give him a Hone Cavalry.

Softening the blow was a couple good 3/4* pulls. In addition to a variety of skill fodder, I got 4* Marth (+SPD -HP), 4* Rebecca (+SPD -DEF), 4* Sheena (+SPD -HP) which were the sets I was looking for for those units.

Before the Legendary banner ends I should be able to get enough orbs for one more round, possibly two, so let's see if my luck turns around.

Welp. 2.5.0's update is around the corner and it indeed brings the option to override EP music change. It also comes with an Arena overhaul that reduces the number of consecutive wins to max score (the Offense score that started this mess and awarded 2.5k feathers plus 10 SS Coins and Poprocks will be eliminated, but achieving the new consecutive wins combo will net you those same items and an additional Orb, 500 feathers and even more Arena Medals), along with providing T_T style buffs to bonus units (for all those Alfonses/Sharenas/Annas tagging along).

Also Camilla, Clair and Male Corrin are next up on the new and improved weapons lineup. Camilla and Clair get Camilla's Axe and Rhomphara respectfully, and those plus Yato can get forged.

And for the rest: Tapper! now provides HM, ABC (already been cleared) stages now give full Exp and SP, units that fall in battle don't lose acquired Exp and SP, OG Takumi is getting handed out as a 4 star freebie unit now, other starting freebie units/Askrs now start at 4 star rarity, they're doing away with those summoning videos from the first batch of Banner units (I never got Lyn's nor Young Tiki's), RDs now have set enemy deployment lists as well as 40 different units rather than 20 (plus they wont use asshat reinforcement strats anymore (unless they WoM)), and mini units in Heroes of Catalog will now sport updated weapons.

Takumi, once king of the Arena, now given out while everyone cheers for the free Close Counter they just got. Since my own Takumi is neutral already I'll probably be using the one we'll be getting for just that (Hopefully Close Counter is a 4* skill, other single-level skills like Hit and Run or the various Shields are that). Gonna be tough to decide who to use it on though.

Corrin and Camilla were high on the expected list for the Refinery, but Clair's a bit of a surprise, though she's a good choice because she really needs it. They're going to need to come up with something really good, because she's probably the worst lance flier outside of Florina, and even with Florina you could make some gimmicky DC Res tank set if you were so inclined. Given its use in Echoes I'm guessing they might just make it a Wing Spear, to the annoyance of everyone who wanted it on CYL Caeda or whatever. Her stat spread is almost identical to Caeda too, down to the ATK superboon.

Changing how the enemy behaves in Rival Domains is the sleeper hit here, you could play around it to an extent sure, but it was always tedious as all hell to approach any enemy fort and was easily the worst part of the mode. Unfortunately we'll still have to suffer through it for this Grand Conquest.

Anyway since I have a Fire Hero now I collected some more orbs from Blessed Gardens and some quests and pulled 10 more units. My luck did turn around this time. Well, kinda, at least it averages me out to pulling around the expected amount of 5*s if nothing else. Got 2 more 5*s in Halloween Jakob (+RES -DEF) and Grima F (+SPD -HP). The set on Jakob is workable presuming I bother using him and that's probably the best set possible for Grima, but I'm gonna need a ton of other skills (particularly Hone Dragon) before I can build any sort of team around her.

I actually also got a +SPD -HP Soleil which I'll probably end up using more than both these 5*s I just pulled, but at any rate I think I'll stop now. Would've liked at least one Genny to show up, but I'll count my blessings.

Of course finding people who want Close Counter is the trick (although I did just obtain this Spoopy Jakob, and that's not counting NYCorrin or Leon).

I've had a 5 star Camilla since forever (is my very first 5 star unit) so giving her a weapon that can unfuck her Atk and Spd would be mighty helpful. I highly suspect that Clair's Rhomphara will be a Win Spear in disguise since it had skills that were effective against Armors and Cavalry in Echoes. Either way, it makes promoting Clair all the more tempting (especially since she and Lukas are the only non-5 star Gaiden units I have (that aren't also in Archanea) and getting all of them to 5 star Level 40 would be amusing). I've got a Male Corrin kicking around, but I doubt his forge will motivate me to promote him unless its something stupider than Alm's Double Dragon Buster.

Also decided to say 'the hell with it' and try for another Legendary Banner prize. Got a second Wyndis for 14 Orbs (with far worse IVs, although I had nowhere to go but down in regards to her traits). While I would've liked a second Seasonal or Legendary from this banner, I'm already over the 50% obtained rate, so I'm opting to save my Orbs and see you next mission (although I still doubt that the next unknown banner will light my fire after Thracia).

Flier Edit: Cleared both Wyndis' and Mkana's Infernals (among other difficulty levels) using my current Flier Emblem team of Cordelia, Airzura, Nowitch and Usagero (or CANUs for short). Also cleared Ursula's Elite GHeB which now leaves two for Xander and one for Valter. Also, for shits and giggles, I went and pulled a Fire Ephraim at last (too bad he's +Res/-Spd).

So the final banner of the previous calendar was indeed FE4 Gen 2. Surprisingly they went with Ares and Lene and even more surprising is the apparent absence of Larcei (still too close to Ayra?; or the fact that they didn't want to make the banner too good since Ishtar is on board). This basically leaves Awakening's Gen 2 as the only major series banner left before doubling up (unless the Exalt Chrom + Morgans was our Awakening Gen 2 in which case, the next one will probably be an FE 1 or 6 banner since they haven't gotten any specific banners for them (no, the obviously New Mystery banner doesn't count)). Meanwhile Julius is confirmed to be the next GHeB, so I guess we'll see what kind of bullshit the game will give him to emulate his Loptyr Tome (considering all that it did was give him his massive damage reduction; not that he needed much more since he was close to max stats and had a fucking 30 Mt 1~2 range Res hitting weapon which is enough in the hands of someone so nigh unkillable).

Anyways, I knew I had saved up 120 Orbs for a good reason (even though I still lack a Blue Dancer/Singer).

Also this latest Three Heroes thing was just the excuse I needed to clear that 8th Stratum quest for the GCN Lance (since I already have Gaius, Gunter and Adult Tiki at Level 40, with the latter most one being 5 star). Also, cleared every last Elite GHeB quest but Valter's Fire Emblem one (I'm basically waiting for a week with a Fire Boost active before knocking that one off).

Edit: And speaking of GCNs. Nothing they can do can fix this mode. You straight up are blessed or screwed by the team you're on, full stop. Even a good team can still get outsniped by whales getting to flex their barracks of Infernal munching 5 star +10 meta monsters within the last two minutes of the match. Meanwhile, the Rank 25 thing is also bullshit since it basically requires you to perform at largely Lunatic or above. You cannot make it just on Hard mode wins and even with numerous Lunatic wins, you still need to squeeze every goddamn point you can from every available Lance to make it there. I'd rather have more VGs than this hot garbage.

I autobattled more than half my lances on the highest difficulty and I reached Rank 25 with some leeway myself (usually all that happens is that I keep the forts I start with). I think them reducing the amount you gain for being on a dominating team is a decent enough change. The difference between owning 1 area and 20+ areas is only 2000 feathers so it's not that big a deal IMO. Plus once they remove the idiotic mechanic where enemies can teleport in and kamikaze all their units in one turn, it'll be pretty easy to take the enemy forts and scoring high shouldn't be too big a problem.

Meanwhile since I stopped pulling I've already saved up 90 orbs that past few days since they've been pretty generous during Golden Week. Getting a second Genealogy banner is a surprise to me, at least having it before any kind of non-seasonal Elibe banner (We got Klein and Dorcas along the way but there still hasn't been a proper FE6 or 7 banner yet). I'm a bit tempted to pull on this new banner but I think I'm going to be saving my orbs from now on to one end- getting lots of Hectors. I still haven't gotten a single Hector and I'm getting into a lot of Arena matchups where I'm really feeling the handicap from playing my shitty DC-less armors. The fact that I put double Rallys on them instead of Swap to up my score makes it even worse. There's a lot of other units I've built that really want DC as well, like Eliwood.

Now I just have to wait for a Hector banner to come along. At worst when CYL comes along they'll probably run a banner with vanilla Hector on it if they follow the same thing they did last year. Or maybe Hector will get DC again-again on his CYL version. Vanilla Hector also comes with Goad Armor though, so he's a nice two-fer if I want him for inheritance purposes.

FE7 got one of the very first game specific non-seasonal banners though (albeit dominated by Colorless Hell thanks to having Jaffar, Rebecca, Lucius and Priscilla on it; at least it also gave us Ninian, and Karel I guess). At this point we still haven't gotten a specifically FE1 banner (Shadow Dragon could work as well with Norne, Nagi, Horace, Frey, Etzel and/or Ymir), a BSFE banner (which would consist entirely of Dice and Malice and maybe Nyna and/or Camu' Sable Riders), an FE6 specific banner (we still don't have Etruian Generals Percival or Douglas, nevermind other stars like Echidna, Sin, Rutger, Old Marcus, Melady or Guinavere), a proper Awakening banner (other than Exalt Chrom and the Morgans but that's basically a single child character and two Alts), and a Fates Gen 1 banner (although they've gotten so many fucking Event alts, that it feels like they've gotten several already).

That being said, according to my notes, right now the game with the lowest percentage of representation is Radiant Dawn followed by Thracia 776 (the former is almost entirely due to the fact that the only current RD character that wasn't in PoR is Mickey; although she was occasionally referenced; the latter due to only having that poor halfassed Banner (on that note, what are the odds that instead of Ares, Lene and Ishtar, we get Ares, Lene and Alts of Seliph and Julia with Ishtar being the +_+ or next GCN reward?)). Inversely, the games with the best representation right now are Awakening, Fates and Shadow Dragon (I thought that Gaiden/Echoes was closer to the 50% mark than SD, but then I checked the CYL2 list and lol at all the boss and NPC inclusions; seriously, why the fuck is Brigand Boss a ranking character on the CYL2 list?).

At any rate, people can hopefully stop bitching about Lyn's four alts now that Xander has caught up again. Have to lol at the developer's love for Nohrian Scum as Ryoma continues to not have a single goddamn Alt in spite of this being a perfect opportunity for one (I guess they're waiting for the 2020 banner with Larcei and Patty). :v